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The first mentioned Asians in Germany were Chinese. In 1822 two Cantonese-speaking seafarers, Feng Yaxing and Feng Yanxue came to Berlin.[3] They were employed as stoker on steamships in Hamburg and Bremen. During the mid to late 19th and early 20th century plenty of seamen and students resided in the Hamburg district of St. Pauli, forming a Chinatown.[4] Due to the Nazi regime, most of the Chinese population had to leave in the 1930s to escape discrimination.

In western Germany, a lot of Vietnamese people arrived in the 1960s or 1970s as refugees from the Vietnam War. The comparatively larger Vietnamese community in eastern Germany traces its origins to assistance agreements between the GDR and the North Vietnamese government. Under these agreements, guest workers from Vietnam were brought to East Germany, where they soon made up the largest immigrant group and were provided with technical training. Following the fall of the Berlin Wall, many stayed in Germany. Since the early 1990s there has been an influx of Thai people, South Koreans, Indonesians and Filipinos coming to Germany as nurses, au pairs or employees. In addition, illegal immigration from Vietnam via Eastern Europe is increasing significantly in the East German states.[5] Furthermore, there are far more Thai and Filipino women than men in Germany, while the reverse holds true for Chinese and Indians. The Vietnamese community which now forms the largest group of Asians in Germany has a more equal male-female ratio.

According to the German "Mikrozensus 2011" there were about 1.8 Million people with an Asian migrant background living in Germany. Of those about 600,000 were of Southeast Asian descent (primarily from Vietnam or Thailand).[6]